Nana’s Cinnamon Buns
Skillet of 6
The original. Overnight yeast dough, dark cinnamon sugar, and a thin vanilla glaze that goes on warm.
$45
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Mawmaw’s recipe · Nana’s hands
Nana learned these yeast rolls standing at her mother’s elbow in Memphis. Mawmaw never wrote a thing down — you learned by watching, or you didn’t learn. Seventy years later they still come out of a cast-iron skillet, and now they can come out of your oven too.
Three generations
“Mawmaw never gave me the recipe. She gave me a Saturday.”
— Nana, born 1955, Memphis, Tennessee
She was a girl in a Memphis kitchen with a mother who taught by doing. She has been in Jacksonville for more than forty years now, and in all that time the recipe has not moved an inch. The proof is that every person who has ever eaten one asks for the recipe, and she still says the same thing Mawmaw said: come over Saturday.
Real yeast dough, proofed slow and overnight. It pulls apart in soft sheets instead of crumbling. That is the whole difference, and it is why nobody can copy it from a can.
Real butter, real cinnamon, real vanilla. Nothing bleached, nothing bromated, nothing with a number in its name. Clean enough for the strictest grocery shelf in America.
Cast iron gives the edges their caramel and keeps the middles pillowy. We ship them in the same pan shape they were born in.
Full disclosure
The amounts and the method stay in the family. The list never does. One dough, two directions — sweet and savory. Here is exactly what goes into each, real pantry ingredients and nothing that needs a chemistry degree to pronounce.
The original — overnight yeast dough, dark cinnamon sugar, and a thin vanilla glaze. Made entirely with organic ingredients.
Contains wheat, milk and egg.
Mawmaw’s plain yeast buns — the source recipe every Nana Bun is built on. Made entirely with organic ingredients.
Contains wheat, milk and egg.
The savory side of the yeast bun — built on the same organic dough, then turned toward dinner. Three to start. The savory add-ins are not organic-certified.
By flavor, on top of the base:
Balsamic Parmesan — honey, balsamic vinegar, parmesan.
Chili Crisp — Nana’s Chili Crisp, sesame oil.
Parmesan Seasoned — parmesan, roasted garlic & onion, olive oil.
Contains wheat, milk and egg.
Potassium bromate · azodicarbonamide · bleached flour · hydrogenated fats · high-fructose corn syrup · artificial dyes · artificial flavors · artificial preservatives
Several of these are standard in American commercial baking and restricted or banned in the EU, the UK and Canada. If you are reading this from overseas: none of them has ever been in a Nana Bun. We bake to the stricter standard, wherever the bun is headed.
Contains wheat, milk and egg — said plainly, because saying it plainly is the point. A gluten-free version of every product is in the test kitchen, and it will get its own honest list when it ships.
The Bakery
Every pan is baked to order — frozen and par-baked in an insulated box. Twenty-two minutes in your oven and your kitchen smells like Sunday morning in 1962.
Every pan is baked to order and paid at handoff — no card needed today. Outside Florida? Join the list and you will hear the day that changes.
Skillet of 6
The original. Overnight yeast dough, dark cinnamon sugar, and a thin vanilla glaze that goes on warm.
Two skillets of 6
One for the table, one for the freezer. This is the size families reorder — and it clears free shipping.
6 buns + a handwritten card
Kraft box, wax paper, twine, and a card Nana writes herself. Tell us what to say and she will say it.
Skillet of 6, every week
A fresh skillet every week so it is in your freezer by Sunday. One-month minimum, then skip or cancel any time.
Also from Nana
The plain yeast buns the whole recipe is built on — soft, barely sweet, made entirely with organic ingredients. Same sizes as the cinnamon rolls.
Six
The everyday roll — the same organic dough, before the cinnamon and glaze. Warm one and it is Sunday dinner.
12 buns
Twice as many, for the table and the freezer both. The size a full house goes through in a weekend.
6 buns + a handwritten card
Six of the plain rolls, boxed the Mawmaw way, with a card Nana writes herself.
Six, monthly
Fresh rolls in the house every month. One-month minimum, then skip or cancel any time.
Coming soon · Savory
The savory side of Nana’s yeast bun — the same organic dough, turned toward dinner. Three to start. Full ingredients are in the disclosure above.
Savory yeast bun
The organic yeast base with honey, balsamic vinegar, and parmesan cheese.
Savory yeast bun
The organic yeast base with a kick of heat from Nana’s Chili Crisp and a drizzle of sesame oil.
Savory yeast bun
The organic yeast base with parmesan cheese, roasted garlic and onion, and a drizzle of olive oil.
Coming soon
The next thing out of Nana’s oven — big, bakery-style jumbo muffins. Three to start. Join the list and you will hear the day they drop.
Coming soonGourmet jumbo muffin
Double the blueberries — folded through the batter and piled on top — with a tender crumb and a crackly sugar top.
Gourmet jumbo muffin
Cinnamon apple folded through, finished with a streusel top.
Gourmet jumbo muffin
Warm cinnamon and soft apple in a tender crumb, with a cinnamon-sugar top.
Coming soon
A new line on the way — soft cake under a thick swirl of icing. Starting with Double Chocolate; more flavors to follow.
Iced cupcake · Flavor #1
Rich chocolate cake with chocolate chips throughout, finished with a swirl of chocolate icing.
Coming soon
Nana’s own chili crisp, in a jar — not a bun but a condiment, and the same heat that goes into the Chili Crisp savory buns.
Coming soonThe Pantry · 6 oz jar
A condiment for grilled or baked fish, chicken, or pork — and especially good on any Asian dish, including noodles. Try it over cottage cheese or on avocado toast. The 6 oz jars make nice hostess gifts.
Every jar is labeled by hand — Nana’s own, at her kitchen table.
Ingredients: avocado oil, dried red pepper flakes, dried minced onion, dried minced garlic, toasted sesame seeds, smoked paprika, turbinado sugar, soy sauce, salt. Contains soy, wheat and sesame.
How it gets to you
Par-baked the morning it ships, flash-frozen, and packed in an insulated liner with gel packs. We will ship Monday through Wednesday only — nothing should sit in a truck over a weekend.
Two-day carrier, tracked. Into your freezer for up to three months, or straight into the fridge if Sunday is close.
Twenty-two minutes at 350°F, then the glaze while they are hot. Full instructions will ride in the box in Nana’s handwriting.
The Flavor Wheel
Cinnamon is first out of the oven — Mawmaw’s original. The rest are in the test kitchen — sweet and savory both — and each earns its own color when Nana signs off on it. No flavor ships before she does.
Sweet
Savory
Every flavor keeps the same cream, the same cast-iron ink and the same wordmark — only the field and its cut change. Sweet or savory, that is how the shelf stays one family across two dozen flavors.
Grocers & Cafes
We are a Florida local producer in the making, building toward Whole Foods, The Fresh Market and independent grocers across the Southeast. If you buy for a store, a cafe or a hotel, start here.
Wholesale & RetailThe order book
Every dot is a real order, plotted right where it came from. Neighbors first, then the rest of Florida — the map fills in from here.
Orders by city
The Pantry
The buns came first because they are the thing people beg for. But Nana’s kitchen has two more famous things in it: a dark gumbo roux she stirs for the better part of an hour, and a Sunday gravy that simmers all afternoon. Both are coming to a jar.
Get on the list and you will hear when the first buns are ready — and about the first jars before anyone else.
From the kitchen, this week
Nana has agreed to be on the internet. She would like everyone to know she still does not trust it.
Nana on TikTok
The short ones — rising dough, cast iron, Mawmaw’s rules, thirty seconds at a time. Caden holds the phone. Nana pretends not to notice.
Nana on Facebook
The long Saturday bakes, start to finish, no cuts. Facebook is the one platform Nana can find on her own — most days.